François Marie Savina (20 March 1876 – 23 July 1941Michaud, Jean. ''Historical Dictionary of the Peoples of the Southeast Asian Massif'' (Historical Dictionaries of Peoples and Cultures).

Scarecrow Press Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group is an independent publishing house founded in 1949. Under several imprints, the company offers scholarly books for the academic market, as well as trade books. The company also owns the book distributing compa ...

, April 19, 2006. , 9780810865037. p
209
) was a Frenchman who worked as a Catholic priest and as an anthropologist.Cha, Dia (Learning through folklore series). ''Teaching with Folk Stories of the Hmong: An Activity Book''. Libraries Unlimited, 2000. , 9781563086687. p
1
For an approximately forty-year period he worked in the Upper-Tonkin Vicariate,

Hainan Hainan (, ; ) is the smallest and southernmost province of the People's Republic of China (PRC), consisting of various islands in the South China Sea. , the largest and most populous island in China,The island of Taiwan, which is slightly l ...

, and

Laos Laos (, ''Lāo'' )), officially the Lao People's Democratic Republic ( Lao: ສາທາລະນະລັດ ປະຊາທິປະໄຕ ປະຊາຊົນລາວ, French: République démocratique populaire lao), is a socialist ...

. He studied the

Hmong people The Hmong people ( RPA: ''Hmoob'', Nyiakeng Puachue: , Pahawh Hmong: , ) are a sub-ethnic group of the Miao people who originated from Central China. The modern Hmongs presently reside mainly in Southwest China (Guizhou, Yunnan, Sichuan, Chon ...

of northern Vietnam and Laos as he was asked to spread Christianity to them. Nicholas Tapp, author of ''The Impossibility of Self: An Essay on the Hmong Diaspora'', described Savina as "One of our earliest informants who is at all frank about the nature of his day-today encounters with the Hmong".Tapp, p
67
Charles Keith, author of ''Catholic Vietnam: A Church from Empire to Nation'', wrote that Savina was " e most notable" missionary ethnographer of Southeast Asia of his era.Keith, Charles. ''Catholic Vietnam: A Church from Empire to Nation'' (Volume 5 of From Indochina to Vietnam: Revolution and War in a Global Perspective Series).

University of California Press The University of California Press, otherwise known as UC Press, is a publishing house associated with the University of California that engages in academic publishing. It was founded in 1893 to publish scholarly and scientific works by faculty ...

, 2012. , 9780520272477. p
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Tapp wrote that "Savina spoke Hmong but we do not know how much".Tapp, p
68
Savina also had studied Chinese. Robert Entenmann, author of "The Myth of

Sonom Sonom (died circa June 13–14, 1776) was a chieftain of the rGyalrong people in China. He was the lord-lama of Greater Jinchuan.Theobald, Ulrich. ''War Finance and Logistics in Late Imperial China: A Study of the Second Jinchuan Campaign (1771� ...

, the Hmong King," wrote that Savina "was unfamiliar with Chinese history and the subtleties of Chinese vocabulary".Entenmann, Robert (

St. Olaf College St. Olaf College is a private liberal arts college in Northfield, Minnesota. It was founded in 1874 by a group of Norwegian-American pastors and farmers led by Pastor Bernt Julius Muus. The college is named after the King and the Patron Saint Olaf ...

).
The Myth of Sonom, the Hmong King

Archive
. ''

Hmong Studies Journal The ''Hmong Studies Journal'' is an irregularly published, peer-reviewed academic journal covering studies on the Hmong people. The journal was established in 1996 and the editor in chief and publisher is Mark Pfeifer.Brittany Brittany (; french: link=no, Bretagne ; br, Breizh, or ; Gallo language, Gallo: ''Bertaèyn'' ) is a peninsula, Historical region, historical country and cultural area in the west of modern France, covering the western part of what was known ...

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

. In 1901 he arrived in

Tonkin Tonkin, also spelled ''Tongkin'', ''Tonquin'' or ''Tongking'', is an exonym referring to the northern region of Vietnam. During the 17th and 18th centuries, this term referred to the domain ''Đàng Ngoài'' under Trịnh lords' control, includi ...

after having joined the Société des Missions-Etrangères de Paris (MEP). He was 25 years old at the time.Culas, Christian. ''Le messianisme hmong aux 19e et 20e siècles. La dynamique religieuse comme instrument politique'' (Chemins de l'ethnologie, ISSN 1257-9947). Les Editions de la MSH ( FR), 2005. p
114
, 9782735116676. Initially Savina worked with Hmong in

Lào Cai Lào Cai () is a city in the Northwest region of Vietnam. It is the capital of Lào Cai Province. The city borders Bảo Thắng District, Bát Xát District, Sa Pa and the city of Hekou Yao Autonomous County, in Yunnan province of southwes ...

Vietnam Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making i ...

. From 1906 to 1925 Savina worked with the

Yunnan Yunnan , () is a landlocked Provinces of China, province in Southwest China, the southwest of the People's Republic of China. The province spans approximately and has a population of 48.3 million (as of 2018). The capital of the province is ...

, China, and also with Hmong in northern

French Indochina French Indochina (previously spelled as French Indo-China),; vi, Đông Dương thuộc Pháp, , lit. 'East Ocean under French Control; km, ឥណ្ឌូចិនបារាំង, ; th, อินโดจีนฝรั่งเศส, ...

. From 1918 to 1921 Savina had an official assignment in Laos. Beginning in 1925 he worked as an ethnographic field research representative of the

École française d'Extrême-Orient The French School of the Far East (french: École française d'Extrême-Orient, ), abbreviated EFEO, is an associated college of PSL University dedicated to the study of Asian societies. It was founded in 1900 with headquarters in Hanoi in wh ...

(EFEO). During that assignment he was based in Hainan and made frequent trips to

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...

where he interacted with a printing house of the MEP. This assignment ended in 1928. He resumed his missionary activities in 1939 and moved to

Ha Giang Ha may refer to: Agencies and organizations * Health authority * Hells Angels Motorcycle Club * Highways Agency (now ''National Highways''), UK government body maintaining England's major roads * Homelessness Australia, peak body organisation fo ...

in Upper Tonkin. He was hospitalized in

Hanoi Hanoi or Ha Noi ( or ; vi, Hà Nội ) is the capital and second-largest city of Vietnam. It covers an area of . It consists of 12 urban districts, one district-leveled town and 17 rural districts. Located within the Red River Delta, Hanoi is ...

after he came down with

pneumonia Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung primarily affecting the small air sacs known as alveoli. Symptoms typically include some combination of productive or dry cough, chest pain, fever, and difficulty breathing. The severity ...

in March 1941. At age 65 he died on July 23 of that year.

Publications

Savina collected his own data to build eight dictionaries of languages of Southeast Asia, including those in highland and lowland areas. The dictionaries and four

lexicons A lexicon is the vocabulary of a language or branch of knowledge (such as nautical or medical). In linguistics, a lexicon is a language's inventory of lexemes. The word ''lexicon'' derives from Greek word (), neuter of () meaning 'of or for wo ...

he wrote combined have a total of over 5,000 pages; these were published from 1911 to 1939. Savina also wrote histories and ethnographic texts. Many of his works are about the Hmong people. Savina's publications discuss the Ao, Be, Chinese,

Day A day is the time period of a full rotation of the Earth with respect to the Sun. On average, this is 24 hours, 1440 minutes, or 86,400 seconds. In everyday life, the word "day" often refers to a solar day, which is the length between two so ...

, Hiai,

Hoklo The Hoklo people or Hokkien people () are a Han Chinese (also Han Taiwanese) subgroup who speak Hokkien, a Southern Min language, or trace their ancestry to Southeastern Fujian, China and known by various endonyms or other related terms such a ...

Miao Miao may refer to: * Miao people, linguistically and culturally related group of people, recognized as such by the government of the People's Republic of China * Miao script or Pollard script, writing system used for Miao languages * Miao (Unicode ...

, Nung,

Tay Tay may refer to: People and languages * Tay (name), including lists of people with the given name, surname and nickname * Tay people, an ethnic group of Vietnam ** Tày language *Atayal language, an Austronesian language spoken in Taiwan (ISO 639 ...

, and Vietnamese languages. His works appeared in academic journals of the era. Savina wrote ''

Histoire des Miao ''Histoire des Miao'' ("History of the Miao") is a 1924 ethnographic book of the Hmong people by François Marie Savina, published by the Société des Missions-Etrangères de Paris.Savina, François-Marie 1924, ''Histoire des Miao.'' Hong Kong: ...

'', published in 1924, and ''Monographie de

'' ("Monograph of Hainan Island"), published in 1929. Of Savina's writings, ''Histoire des Miao'' is the most well-known and the most often cited. He wrote a 1920 confidential report titled "Rapport politique sur la révolte des Méos au Tonkin et au Laos."

References

* Tapp, Nicholas. ''The Impossibility of Self: An Essay on the Hmong Diaspora'' (Volume 6 of Comparative anthropological studies in society, cosmology and politics).

LIT Verlag Münster LIT Verlag is a German academic publisher founded in 1980. Its managing director is Wilhelm Hopf. Its principal place of publication is Münster; further publishing offices are located in Berlin, Vienna, Hamburg (male), (female) en, Hamburg ...

, 2010. , 9783643102584.

Publications

References

Notes

Further reading